SewaneeLetters.com

Current home: Sewanee, TN
Age: 55
Program: MFA
Year in the program: 3 Years; 6 Courses Complete (both arbitrary measures or indices of expected completion – GO Tina!)

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
School: Dixon Kindergarten; Bel-Aire Elementary; West Junior High; Tullahoma High School; University of the South, Sewanee, TN, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN; Auburn University, Auburn, AL; University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR; University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff, AR; University of Arkansas, Monticello, AR; University of Arkansas, William Bowen School of Law, Little Rock, AR; University of the South, Sewanee, TN.
Work: Dishwasher, paperboy, sack-boy, newspaper pressroom, potato farm, lifeguard, psychology research assistant, cafeteria worker, bartender, waiter, busboy, liquor store clerk, cafeteria cook, bus mechanic, cafeteria line worker, Forestry lab assistant, timber cruiser, firewood salesman, Forestry teaching assistant, Forestry research assistant, Forester, Operations Research Analyst, Timber Sales Assistant, Planning analyst, manufacturing consultant, slumlord, Natural Resource Research Specialist, cook, waiter, bouncer, Law Clerk, Attorney, substitute teacher, & probably some other stuff I have forgotten.
Etc_1: Ex-wives = 2; kids = 3; grandchildren = 3; Dog = 1; Cats = 2; Cars = 14; Trucks = 2; Bus & Winnebago = 1 each. Hobbies: Local politics; International Visitors; building stuff; cars; bicycles; hiking. Locally: Vice pres. Tim’s Ford Environmental Education Association; youth sponsor – Otey Parish Episcopal Church; Denizen of the Blue Chair coffee shop; and host of occasional and recurring themed parties including the new series of porch parties / jam sessions.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
Figured I needed to learn to read & write. Given my transportation situation, it had to be somewhere nearby.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
I am writing occasional appeal briefs. Most of my time now is spent learning and knowing and speaking.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Some folks might call this a tough question. I say it’s a BS question. If your experience(s) can be so easily ordinally ranked and so simplistically evaluated, the problem is with YOU! Yes, if, on the other hand, you continually push the envelope so hard that you are too exhausted for precise quantitative reflection, then you have achieved value. There is no need for: Win; Place; & Show. The true glory is to have made it across the perpetually undulating finish line at all. Seriously, though, how can one compare an Angus course with anything? Yep – incomparable. And John Gatta clutching the table edge like a shipwrecked whaler while ranting excitedly about hundred year old books – can’t touch that either. All three of the writing workshops I’ve had have been both useful and challenging. & getting to rip on some pompous wannabe’s written drivel. . . huh? Complete sentence? What for? Nobody talks that way! KnowwutImean?

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Since I prefer new experiences of unknown composition, I cannot answer this question until it has already happened.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
1) Do not take offense at the crazy people also enrolled – after a couple of years, they’ll grow on you.
2) Be nice to Sammy & he will look out for you.
3) Hike.
4) If the presentation is an academic paper to be read by the author, take No-Doz (or sleep thru it).
5) If, after a couple of years, the crazy people have not grown on you, shed them like a space shuttle tile. You are not suitable habitat
6) Do not follow any advice given by knowitall old timers, they are just dumbasses like yourself with more time invested.

What are you reading these days?
A cheap biography of Kafka, Restored Edition of Ariel by Sylvia Plath, a couple of books by Andrew Lytle, a few TN Wms plays, an Anne Lamont thingy & some free books the library was giving away.